<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">Another stupid law suit. Barber shops sale hair all the time to wig makers what is the problem, often times if you ask at the time of the cut they may buy it from you. Good old Neil didn't think of selling his hair first, and how this has anything to do with the Ohio law designed to protect the rights of famous people I have no idea. Do famous people have more rights than normal citizens, if he sold my hair for $3000 would I be able to sue, which I wouldn't because good on him for being able to profit from something useless. Hay Neil instead of suing why don't you sell your toe nail clippings and give the barber a cut of the profit for giving you the idea. This is another case of the law says I can sue so I will not because Neil was actually harmed by it, if anything it has given the old fossil some needed publicity.</font>

CINCINNATI (AP) - Apollo moon mission astronaut Neil Armstrong has threatened to sue a barbershop owner who collected Armstrong's hair after a trim and sold it for $3,000 US.

more...

[ 06-01-2005, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

Only in America could this happen.....

If his hair was returned to him would he sell it...auction it on Ebay mayhaps? DEAD HAIR for SALE!
Has he collected all his milk teeth since childhood? God forbid he ever has a tumour.

What a tight arsed bastard, I'm not sure you could drive an oily nail up this mans arse with a two pound hammer.

Also who the *beeep* would buy it? I mean how on earth would you authenticate it? If someone finds out who then please send me the e-mail. I have some of Tom Cruise's hair for sale. It looks a bit like my own, but don't you worry about that. As long as there's 3 grand on my account it'll be in the mail.

Ohio law basically says that the right of publicity is a property right. This means that if someones name (among other things) has a commercial value then you can't use it for a comercial purpose.

If he sold it as "This hair belongs to [insert your name here]", and someone paid more because of that, then you would be able to sue him. If he sold it as "This is just some random hair" then you wouldn't be able to sue.

Did it ever occur to you that he might not want publicity? Neil has generally avoided the media spotlight.

[ 06-01-2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: Seraph ]

<font face="Verdana" size="3" color="#00FF00">I did until he filed a law suit. If you don't want publicity don't file a law suit.

The law itself is kind of dumb because just how is a judge suppose to judge popularity. How many screaming fan girls he has. The guy may be an American Hero but I personally don't consider the man popular. Being the first to walk on the moon is cool but it is the event that stands out not the man. Lets face it people will remember his name associated with the event but I doubt many people will recognize him on the street today. Hell I thought the photo of the barber could have been Neil.</font>

[ 06-01-2005, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

Did you read the rest of my post? All that needs to be determined is if Neil Armstrong's name had an effect on the selling price of the hair. If it did, then his name was used in a way that was illegal under the law.

http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/b...m?ID=123_SB_54

<font color=plum>Thanks for the info, <font color=white>Seraph</font>. While the barber may have technically broken Ohio law, I have to agree with <font color=lime>Pritchke</font> that it is extremely petty for Neil Armstrong to sue him for selling his hair.

Since Neil had no use for the discarded hair and - presumably - had never wondered what happened to the hair that was cut off before this incident, I honostly fail to see how he has been harmed by this incident. So what if the barber managed to make some extra money selling some of his hair to a collector? Was Neil's reputation really damaged that badly? Barber's don't make a huge amount of money anyway and - as pointed out in the opening post - selling the hair they cut for wigs is a common practice to supplement their incomes. Is Neil really so pissed that his barber made an extra $3,000 of his hair instead of throwing it in the trash can? Sorry, but it still just sounds very petty to me. And it also is ridiculous for Armstrong's lawyer to demand that the barber donate the money to charity AND pay Armstrong's legal fees. I don't know what Armstrong's financial situation is, but I'm sure he made good money with NASA and is receiving a good retirement. And I'm also sure Neil can demand more than $3,000 for any speaking engagement he does (if he really wants to see that sum donated to charity).

The other point about this is that - in our litigation-crazy society - this incident could conceivably force barbers with famous clients to start signing disclaimers certifying that they will NOT sell, disburse or dispose of the hair from famous clients in a manner to bring extra profit to the barber without first receiving said clients express written approval.

I just don't see what is so damaging about the barber selling hair that was going to be discarded anyway. And $3,000 isn't a huge amount of money (relatively speaking). I'm sure it was a nice bonus for the barber, but it certainly wasn't an outrageous sum of money.

Hmmmm...maybe that's what Neil is so upset about, that his hair wasn't worth as much as hair from other celebrities.</font>

Man,

Don't u think it could have been a little decent?

Girl,

Don't u think u cld have contributed an opinion on teh actual subject matter, don't wrry bout your post count l33t dude...kthx.

P.S. The letters "Y" and "O" really aren't hard to type for the word "YOU".
I personally disregard pretty much everything written by someone who can't be arsed to even attempt to speak/write properly. If you'd like the post broken down into childish language, please feel free to ask....I'll happily accomodate.

Sorry for 'YOU' brother,

You could see a mistake in the letter 'u' ... What about the improvemnt i have shown in the other words "Could" , "have" , "little" ???????? I used to write CLD , HAV , LIL before. Ain't i improving mate?

I would appreciate people who "WHEN TAUNT YOU FOR A MISTAKE,ALSO GIVE YOU CREDIT FOR WHAT YOU HAVE IMPROVED"

FAIR Enough?

Hey, apologies, I'm not after upsetting you buddy. It is hard to take seriously someone using leet speech on a discussion forum. Obviously English isn't your first language and I should remember that. You do use English pretty well by and large and for that I commend you.

Hope we can be mates now. [img]smile.gif[/img]

^^^ Yeah man,

We are buddys [img]smile.gif[/img]
Anyways i still do not understand why have you put those monkeys below the flag :(

A lot of jabs at Mr. Armstrong -- howsabout calling the worthless *beep* who collected his hair and sold it in the first place exactly what he is -- a bottom-feeding dodgy little sewer slug.

Well, if collecting someones hair from floor and selling it would get me 3000 dollars, I'd do it. It's no worse than stealing somones garbage. Which I would also do if someone threw away something worth 3000 dollars.

I fear I repeat myself but, ...
I simply don't understand why Armstrong chose to tackle the problem in this fashion. He had two options, he could go out saying
"That is my hair! It belongs to me and I do not want you selling it. Cease immidiately or face legal consequences."
or he could simply say
"That is not my hair."
The last is preferable as I see it. The barber has no way of authenticating the hair without Mr. Armstrong. By destroying the credibility he would prevent any sale.

My sentiments exactly.

Well, usually I'd agree. But isn't the difference here that this is common practice in barber's shops? He went in there knowing that hair is collected and sold for wigs anyway so surely gives his tacit consent? The fact that his hair was sold as belonging to him personally doesn't strike me as being fundamentally different to what happens to any other customer, simply less anonymous.

<font color=plum>Well I have to disagree with you this time, <font color=tan>Timber</font>. It isn't like the barber was scavenging around looking for hair from a celebrity to sell. He has to sweep up the cut hair after every customer anyway and it IS a common practice for barber and beauty shops to save the hair and sell it for wigs. So the barber was not doing anything out of the ordinary. It is a normal part of his job to sweep up hair, collect it together, and sell it to make some extra money. It's just that this time the barber realized he might be able to make more money than usual since the hair belonged to somebody famous.</font>

Somebody paid $3,000 for Neil's Hair? Well that goes to show you P.T. Barnum under estemated the birthrate of suckers. :D

You can't blame the barber for "seizing the day", The guy created a market, and some lamb walked in and dropped $3,000 for some hair. Neil's upset cause he didn't see a market, that he was the sole supplier of, he let the "day slip by". What Neil is probibly really afraid of is somebody will want conformation that the hair is his and go to court to make Neil give a DNA test. Now the real bottom feeder will be the one that tries to make Neil give DNA.

So a recap of some facts... The hair was sold to the guy with the biggest collection of famous people hair according to the guiness book of world records and Armstrong wants the hair back or the money donated, and legal fees recouped. Right?

well...
Perhaps Mr. Armstrong thinks a principle or two is involved. I know I would be upset if someone sold my hair without telling me.


Besides- How "signficant" could some dead person's hair ever be?- how in the hell does some one become inspired to collect hair from famous people in the first place??? Perhaps Armstrong thinks the hair collector is some sort of freak and would have wanted no part of it?

What evidence is there suggest Mr. Armstrong was profiteering himself? Does he need the money or something?


And I never knew that shops can sell hair without explicit permission. I'm gladder than ever I havent had a hair cut in 13 years. :D

<font color=plum>Why should shops need express permission to sell discarded hair? Has anyone here ever given ANY consideration at all to what the barber or stylist does with your hair after it has been cut off? Did you stop them as they were sweeping it up and say "Exactly what are you planning to do with my hair?"

I seriously doubt it. And I seriously doubt Neil Armstrong ever gave it a second thought either, until he learned the barber had sold this last batch he cut off. </font>

But that's completely irrelevant to this case; I don't think anyone would particularly care if one's hair gets collected to make a wig out of it or not, and I doubt Armstrong would have minded if it really happened the way you're describing here. But it's not selling someone's hair in itself that's the issue here, it's selling someone's hair and making a lot of extra money over it because you're taking advantage of that person's status as a celebrity.
As far as I'm concerned, Chewie's points still stand. But then again, you didn't really seem to address them, except for his final remark that was more of a rhetorical question than a point anyway. ;)

[ 06-13-2005, 02:01 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

<font color=plum>I didn't "address" <font color=orange>Chewie's</font> other points because I felt my previous comments made it fairly clear I disagreed with them. However, since you insist.....

<font color=plum>As I mentioned before, if you have ever had your hair cut, then there is a good chance your hair was sold without you being told. And as I asked in my previous post, who among us has ever given ANY thought to what happens to the cut hair before now? If Neil Armstrong had not expressed concern with how his hair was "disposed of" after previous cuts, I honostly don't see that he has any reason to get upset now.</font>

<font color=plum>How did this guy become inspired to collect celebrity hair? Who knows. Maybe he figured locks of hair from celebrities would be easier and cheaper to collect instead of other memoribilia. How "significant" could a dead person's hair ever be? Well it obviously has significance to the guy who is collecting it, but probably not to many other people. Which actually supports the point I've been making. To rephrase the question, "How significant is discarded hair to the person that had the haircut?" The answer in almost every case is "Not very much". So if the hair wasn't significant to the "owner", then I find it a bit hypocritical and petty that it suddenly becomes very significant when the owner learns that the discarded hair was sold for a tidy sum of money. Bottom line is that Neil Armstrong apparantly gave no thought to what happened to his discarded hair until he learned the barber had sold it for $3,000.</font>

<font color=plum>Don't really know what you mean about the suggestion that Armstrong was profiteering himself. :confused: I did suggest that Armstrong seemed to be upset that the barber had gotten the money. And it wasn't an outrageous amount. It didn't make the barber rich or pay for a vacation, it just gave him some extra money to pay on some of his bills. Neil is demanding the money be contributed to charity and the barber be forced to pay for his legal fees. That is just petty of Armstrong IMHO. If he wants his charity to have $3,000, I would imagine he could afford to donate it himself. And there wouldn't BE any legal fees if Armstrong wasn't acting like a spoiled child (HE got something and it should have been MINE). I don't know Neil's financial situation, but I'm sure he could earn $3,000 for any speaking engagement he chose to make. However, this was a one-shot deal for the barber.

If Neil objects to the sale of his hair no a matter of principal, then he could have handled it a LOT better than filing a lawsuit and demanding that this working-class barber pay his legal fees in addition to the money recieved for his hair. He could have gone to the barber privately and expressed his objections and could have asked the barber man-to-man to pay the money to charity. But he didn't choose to handle it that way.</font>

Well, like I said, I haven't been to a haircut place in over a decade, so I have no basis of expirience to speculate upon. Do they post signs?

I would naturally assume they would throw the cut hair out as trash. Of course I personally would object to anyone taking my hair with or without my knowledge. This has more to do with personal beliefs than practical concerns.

Anyway, I think Armstrong is doing nothing wrong and is well within his rights to sue. Most celebrities sell part of :"Themselves" as a choice and under contract. I've seen it first hand- paying out cash to sports, tv, music, and movie personalities for personal mementos and autographs. It's a perk for being famous.

To take that perk, or any other, with out permission is equivalent to stealing. I think it is correct that Ohio has a law designed to punish profiteering off of unwitting celebrities.

He (Neil baby) didn't want his hair or he WOULD NOT have got it cut off, you only cut off hair you don't want anymore. He in essence discarded his hair, threw it away, and no longer should have any rights to it(the cut hair)

<font color=plum>Thank you, <font color=white>John D.</font> You just summed up in two sentences what I've been trying to say in all of my previous posts. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] </font>

not sure if it has been mentioned yet as I'm coming to this topic for the first time and responding as I see the posts, but Mr. Armstrong attempted to get the hair bought back, but the buyer wouldn't sell. As Timber mentioned Neil was upset about his hair being sold without his permission, if the barber knew someone was interested in his hair he should have simply asked him, Neil has every right to want his garbage to be discarded, Pritchke mentioned celebrities having extra rights, well they do have a few perks, but they also forfeit alot of their rights (ask the National Enquirer how they can get away with outright lies about celebs), but Mr Armstrong isn't capitalizing on many of the perks, and simply wants to be left alone. I certainly wouldn't want someone selling my DNA (which the gov't has on file due to my military service) without my permission, I wouldn't want to see my trash in someone's collection of stuff, unless they came to me (in which case I wouldn't care as it's not an invasion of privacy).

Anonymity is exactly the difference though, if his hair had been sold anonymously for wigs he wouldn't have had a problem, but it went to a guy that specifically looks for celebrity hair samples, I don't know if the article mentioned the collector much but he has gone quite out of his way to get a very large collection, including Napoleon and IIRC Marilyn Monroe (the article I read through was on another forum that was discussing this topic).

<font color=plum>Thank you, <font color=white>John D.</font> You just summed up in two sentences what I've been trying to say in all of my previous posts. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] </font> </font>[/QUOTE]Why do I have the feeling that people just pat themselves on the back for making a 'true' statement about something that wasn't even under discussion? It has been pointed out on numerous occasions that collecting discarded hair itself isn't the issue here - it's the fact that it was sold for a much larger sum of money because a privacy law was being violated by marketing it specifically as being Neil Armstrong's hair. You're free to state that Armstrong is being petty about it, but there's a reason for these laws, and I happen to think that they are more than fair.
1. Collecting and selling discarded hair anonymously = fair, legal, decent source of income.
2. Marketing and selling hair by cashing in on a person's status of a celebrity without permission = violating the law.
So why does the debate keep falling back on 1, when we should be debating 2?

That said, I'm kind of creeped out that I finally agree with Morgeruat on something. http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13.../emot-gonk.gif

[ 06-18-2005, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: Grojlach ]

I disagree. Would you like to know the clothes you give to charity are being sold , or another similar situation. Not all barbers sell their hair do they? I am certainly not aware of mine doing it, and you cannot consent to something you do not know of. I concede it is a little pety, bu if he feels this way, it is his right to do this. He may feel his privacy has been violated.

Still, look on the bright side, if he were in the UK he could have been prosecuted.